Emancipation of Labour () was the first

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

group. It was founded in exile by

Georgi Plekhanov Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov ( rus, Георгий Валентинович Плеханов, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj vəlʲɪnʲˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ plʲɪˈxanəf, a=Ru-Georgi Plekhanov-JermyRei.ogg; – 30 May 1918) was a Russian revolutionary, ...

, ,

Vera Zasulich Vera Ivanovna Zasulich (; – 8 May 1919) was a Russian socialist activist, Menshevik writer and revolutionary. She is widely known for her correspondence with Karl Marx, in which she put into question the necessity of a capitalist industriali ...

, Leo Deutsch, and Pavel Axelrod, at

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

(Switzerland) in 1883. Deutsch left the group in 1884 when he was arrested and sent to Siberia and joined in 1888. The group published the first

Russian language Russian is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is ...

translations of many works by

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

and distributed them. It became the major adversary to the

Narodniks The Narodniks were members of a movement of the Russian Empire intelligentsia in the 1860s and 1870s, some of whom became involved in revolutionary agitation against tsarism. Their ideology, known as Narodism, Narodnism or ,; , similar to the ...

on the left wing of politics in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. Two drafts (1883 and 1885) of a program for the Russian

Social Democrats Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, s ...

, written by Plekhanov, were also published by the group, marking an important step to what would become the building of the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...

(RSDLP). At the first congress of the

Second International The Second International, also called the Socialist International, was a political international of Labour movement, socialist and labour parties and Trade union, trade unions which existed from 1889 to 1916. It included representatives from mo ...

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(1889) onwards, the group represented the RSDLP. Within Russia itself, Emancipation of Labour influenced a separate group, the

League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class The League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class (LSEWC) was a Marxist group in the Russian Empire. It was founded in St. Petersburg by Vladimir Lenin, Julius Martov, Gleb Krzhizhanovsky, Anatoly Vaneyev, Alexander Malchenko, P. ...

(Союз борьбы за освобождение рабочего класса), formed by

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

and others at

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

in 1895. Lenin later wrote that Emancipation of Labour "laid the theoretical foundations for the Social-Democratic movement and took the first step towards the working-class movement in Russia." Emancipation of Labour announced its dissolution during the Second Congress of the RSDLP, in August 1903.

References

Marxists.org Glossary of Organisations
* 1883 establishments in the Russian Empire 1903 establishments in the Russian Empire Defunct organizations based in Russia Labour parties Marxism Organizations established in 1883 Organizations disestablished in 1903 Political parties in the Russian Empire Russian Social Democratic Labour Party Socialist organizations in Russia Political parties disestablished in 1903 {{Russia-politics-stub